UK special forces refuse questions in Afghan war crimes probe – Guardian

Many soldiers from the UK’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) have refused to answer questions as part of an inquiry into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan, the Guardian reported on Monday.

The inquiry, launched in 2023, was established to investigate alleged extrajudicial killings by British forces in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013. It is also examining allegations of a cover-up and whether the Royal Military Police properly investigated the incidents.

At Monday’s hearing, Lord Justice Charles Haddon-Cave said that written requests for information had been sent to numerous SAS soldiers linked to the deliberate detention operations (DDOs) at the center of the allegations, according to the Guardian.

“A high proportion have indicated their intention to rely on their privilege against self-incrimination and have refused to answer any questions asked by the inquiry,” the judge said, as cited by the newspaper.

The inquiry has also faced difficulties obtaining documents from the Ministry of Defence.

At a hearing in September, Haddon-Cave revealed that 97 million records from the period under investigation had been omitted from earlier searches. The judge described the discovery as “troubling and regrettable.” The ministry said it expected only around 1,200 additional documents to require disclosure and apologized for delays in responding to the inquiry’s questions.

In April, British media reported that SAS soldiers were resigning in significant numbers over fears of prosecution related to past operations. “Morale is s**t at the moment,” the Telegraph quoted an unnamed insider as saying.

The inquiry has examined allegations involving up to 80 Afghan deaths during SAS operations. A senior special forces whistleblower alleged that commanders had failed to act on warnings about unlawful killings in 2011.

In 2022, a BBC Panorama investigation identified 54 people killed in suspicious circumstances by one SAS unit during a six-month deployment to Afghanistan’s Helmand province between November 2010 and May 2011. Former SAS personnel told the BBC that unarmed Afghan men had been killed during night raids and that weapons had been planted at the scenes to make the shootings appear justified.

The BBC also reported that senior special forces officers had been aware of concerns over the killings but had failed to report them to military police.

British forces were deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 as part of the US-led invasion following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The UK subsequently became one of the largest contributors to the NATO-led mission, with British troops heavily involved in fighting Taliban insurgents, particularly in the southern province of Helmand.

More than 450 British military personnel were killed during the nearly two-decade campaign. The UK withdrew its remaining troops in 2021 as the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan following the collapse of the Western-backed government.